Cognitive sciences at the service of the soap "Un si grand soleil"

With the help of experts in cognitive sciences, TheFictionLab has conducted a diagnosis of the first episodes of this new soap opera, which has been broadcast at 8:40 pm since the beginning of the school year.

For this family soap opera, which focuses on social issues, TheFictionLab takes stock of the information contained in each episode and evaluates the predictable effects on the audience by trying to verify, for example, whether the plot is sufficiently engaging, whether the heroes are memorable, etc. TheFictionLab also assesses the effects of the episodes on the audience.

Asking the right questions

The objective of this test is both to optimize audience satisfaction, by ensuring a good "mix" of factors such as attention, interest, credibility, identification, excitement, emotion and edification, and to validate the relevance of using such tools and methods upstream of video content production, particularly television series.

More specifically, the content of the study was able to address questions such as : does the script constantly keep at least three questions open in the audience's mind? does the script use asymmetry of information between characters and between character and audience to generate an appropriate tension effect? is the character friendly enough or exemplary enough? are the levels of action, seduction or threat well distributed and sufficiently intense?

The report submitted to france.tv studio by TheFictionLab was very positive compared to the analysis of the first two episodes, confirming the writing choices made by the authors.